And then there was one

After a week with my family in town, I have mixed feelings about being back to life with just me. On the one hand, baby E continues to amaze me with his ability to be the cutest baby in the world and to make me hate more than anything that I live so far away from him. Chatting with my sister, shopping with my mom, playing guitar with my bro-in-law, driving with my dad, and all of this surrounded by delicious food, dynamite activities, and a forecast that actually cooperated leaves me in a state of depression this afternoon about how seldom weeks like this come around. On the other hand, I am enjoying the quiet, clean house that I had very much been missing. I think the moral of the week for me was that it was much more of a shock to my system to house 6 people than I had anticipated it being. Now, I don't want that statement to be interpreted as annoyance that the fam was in town, because as I already said, it was the best week ever and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I'm merely trying to point out that there were some definite lessons learned from my first major hosting gig. What follows are some highlights from the week.

First thing's first. Baby E is fabulous. He is so easy to make smile and laugh. He napped well, slept kind-of well, and was a champ as we drug him all over the greater Cleveland area and took pictures of him at every moment. But the best part about baby E is he is hands-down the most adorable baby I have ever seen. He has ruined me for other babies, because not one of them is as cute. I actually find myself looking at babies now and thinking, "you think THAT'S cute?" I loved everything from holding him to getting him up from his naps to reading with him in the morning (I held a book and he opened and closed the first page about a dozen times) to feeding him to making him laugh. And I loved watching my parents love all those things too. It's not that he's spoiled by choice. It's that he's spoiled by default. He's our only baby, and we don't see him very often, so he will always be the center of our attention.



A particular highlight of the week was the National Dog Show. L and I became fans of this thanksgiving tradition some years ago, and it's one of our favorite things each year, watching the dogs and rooting for our favorites (which basically means anyone but the poodles). L & B, who were of course the brainchildren behind the Tuley Baby Contest of 2009 (which involved a few excels of regression and distribution analysis) were in charge of coming up with a scoring system, and we were awarded points based both on pre-show guesses as well as during-show guesses. The Scottie was a heavy favorite going in, but most of us ultimately thought the Doberman would pull off an upset. Not so. The scores below unfortunately do not reflect my mom's after the fact realization that her during-show guess had in fact been the Scottie, so the lift this gave her score meant that I came in last. The funny thing about B winning is that he was the one least familiar with the show and dogs in general. He picked all his winners from the list without even knowing what they were or what they looked like or if they were the kind of breed who typically shows well or who never even makes the first cut. Beginner's luck?


Of all our activities together, perhaps the most memorable was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I had already been there and couldn't wait to go back. Partly because I love the place, but mostly because I knew my dad would love the place. And one of my favorite things is to show something to someone that I've already seen, something I know they'll love. Everyone else sailed through, but I hung back with dad as he took everything in. (Our pace was such that it took us an hour to get down the first hallway). There's so much to see there that it would honestly take a full day, maybe two. But the most memorable part of the outing didn't even occur in the museum. It happened just outside it. The (phenomenal) music selection being played in the lobby is also played at full blast outside. There's a large cement walkway/patio/front area, with a fountain in the middle, and as we approached the museum, my sister moved to jump up on the ledge of the fountain and dance. It was a rockin' idea, so I jumped up there with her. Then mom and dad joined us, and the four pictures we got of our spontaneous dance fest were the favorites of the entire week. What was not captured on film was what happened next, which involved L keeled over from laughter, trying not to pee her pants. What was also not captured on film is the four of us keeled over from laughter, trying not to pee our pants as we sat looking at the pictures later that evening. I guess you just had to have been there on that patio keeled over with us in order to appreciate how funny we thought the whole thing was.




After L, B, and baby E left (and we were all weepy and depressed), I surprised my parents by taking them to see Wicked. It was my third time, but my parents had never seen it. I purchased the tickets months ago (9th row, center, the sweet spot if you ask me) and for some reason decided to keep it a secret even after we had arrived in the theater district. I explained to them that we would be going out and needed to dress up, and dad (not wanting to get out of his sweats) replied, "this is my vacation." I thought an explanation might be required to get him out of the house, but I managed to keep it a secret until we were walking into the theater. Wicked is such an entertaining show, which I love, but what I love more is it's also a relatively deep/complex show when you really think about it. I am drawn to Elphaba's character the same way I am drawn to Frankenstein's monster and the Phantom of the Opera; characters who don't start out evil but become so in large part because of how people treat them. I love how even though most people in the audience are familiar with Wicked and know what's going to happen and when, you can still look around during the last verse of "Defying Gravity" and see that every single face is riveted. We eat it up and then we want more. Needless to say, it was a wonderful evening. Of course, the first conversation we had after the show ended was about how much we missed the baby. But when being with your nephew/grandson is not an option, I suppose 9th row center seats to a show that never disappoints is the next best thing.